


Innocence

by penguinsledding



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-05-10
Updated: 2014-05-21
Packaged: 2018-01-24 06:50:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,159
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1595594
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/penguinsledding/pseuds/penguinsledding
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A series of loosely connected drabbles in which Angel's curse had no loophole. AU after Surprise.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> As some of you may know, I generally write fanfic as a form of self comfort. I turn to it when a canon reality is just too freaking sad for me to deal with. Obviously this is one of those situations. I hope you can find similar comfort here. :)

There’s one long moment, listening to the storm raging outside, where Angel waits for the catch.

Buffy’s heartbeat is thumping loudly against his side; the bare skin of her chest is pressed to his. For the first time since she kissed him that night, he remembers how many girls like her he has killed.

He waits to be punished for forgetting.

She nuzzles against him softly in her sleep. He can hear her mumble something under her breath. His advanced hearing can pick up only some nonsense about office supplies.

He smiles and brushes her hair from her face, remembers her fussing over it after they fell in the water. It is the only image in his head.


	2. Chapter 2

In the morning, she wakes up before him.

There’s a sort of hazy sweetness to her waking; it’s a long, lazy drift into consciousness. The first thing that strikes her is how warm she feels, tucked under his arm. Usually so cold, he’s been warmed by her body heat and by the blankets. It’s not an unpleasant warmth. It is an all encompassing one, a comforting one.

The second thing that strikes her is Angel. His arm, his chest, his _everything_. He looks lovely, she thinks, like everything she’s ever wanted, like a mall trip with her mom and perfect abs and a night free of slayage. He looks peaceful. 

She spends a few moments like that, watching him sleep, feeling warm and content in his arms. Then she gets bored. He may be handsome, all cheekbones and long eyelashes, but she would much rather have him conscious as she appreciated it. Even if that was kind of embarrassing sometimes.

Besides, the longer she lays here, the more she feels her senses wipe away her lazy contentment. The last few hours, so perfect and sweet in her memory, are pulled out and examined by her insecurities, by the parts of her that know her boyfriend has had dozens of lovers more beautiful and experienced than she. 

A part of her wishes she were the kind of girl who could resist the urge to shake her lover (lover!) awake for validation, but she isn’t. His chest is warm and smooth under her palms.

“Buffy?” he says, blinking at her. He rubs the sleep from his eyes. “Is something wrong?”

_The Judge is assembled. The world is going to end. I probably wasn’t very good in bed._

“No,” she says. She smiles widely at him, overly cheerful. “Well, nothing but the usual. You know, Willow likes Xander, Willow likes Oz, Giles and Miss Calendar won’t stop making googly eyes at each other, and some big dude is trying to kill us.” 

“Right.”

His hand moves up, runs a soft line down her face. She’s propped up on one elbow. Her hair falls in a wave onto his skin. He is looking at her now with that familiar mix of worry, his trademark seriousness, and a mysterious _something_ that she knows now is love. It’s too much, and she wants to hide, wants to press her face into his skin, to remind him who she really is. She is just Buffy, hidden though she is behind a cloak of Slayer-y duties and witty catch phrases.

He pulls her towards him, and they kiss instead. It’s long and slow. She feels his fear in it, tastes her own on her tongue. He’s never been good at words, Angel, but she’s learned to understand his language. She can decipher his cryptic warnings, hear the monologues unsaid in his single sentences, and interpret his kiss.

Then the kiss ends, and the purposeful nonchalance is over. The silence breaks.

“We need to get to the library,” Angel says. His voice is soft, regretful. She wishes they had another morning together. One where they didn’t have to worry about big blue bug zappers destroying the human race.

She nods, sitting up. Her hands still hold the blanket to her chest, and her cheeks flush. Is she just supposed to get up and get dressed now? It feels different, somehow, than him peeling her clothes away slowly, lovingly, that night. It feels more revealing in the stark light of- well, not _day_ , not in a vampire’s apartment. It’s something else then.

Angel sits up seamlessly, the blanket falling away from his chest. Her mouth feels dry.

“Your clothes are still wet,” he says. He picks her shirt up from the floor. His voice is apologetic.

“Oh.”

“You can wear something of mine if you’d like.” 

She looks around her, at her things scattered on the floor of his apartment, and remembers the last night she had spent here. That time it was alone, terrified but somehow protected by the shadow of his presence.

“Ok. You know, if we survive this apocalypse,” she says, keeping her voice light. “You really should make this place more girl-friendly. Get some mirrors… I could have a drawer, maybe.”

It’s a test, and they both know it. She wants to know if last night really changed anything. He is still a vampire, and she is still the Slayer, and there are no new reasons why that shouldn’t matter. Somehow, though, she doesn’t think it should.

“If we survive this apocalypse,” Angel says, and her breath catches in her throat. “You can have a whole dresser.”

She smiles, set at ease, and the blanket falls away.


	3. Chapter Three

He barely hears her tell Cordelia to collect the pieces of the Judge. His eyes are already scanning the crowd, searching for Spike and Drusilla within the chaos. She touches his shoulder, points.

He can’t see Spike, but he does see Dru. She is whining, deep and low in her throat, mourning the end of her party. Buffy jumps down from her porch. She doesn’t need to speak; he follows her.

Water beats down on them, and it takes him a moment to realize it’s the fire alarms. The false rain presses into his skin. He has to blink it away to see his surroundings, but he can still smell Dru, can still sense her. She is almost gone.

Buffy stops running ahead of him as Dru’s smell fades. He looks at her, dripping wet, shivering. This is the third time in two days that he has seen her like this. 

The two lock eyes, panting from exertion, dizzy with relief. He wants to crush her to him, to taste her lips and her fear and everything else that makes up this girl. Instead, he just steps closer. Their hands touch. His fingers close around hers.

Between them, the air is electric, heavy. The panic around them sounds as if it is a distant dream.

He takes another step closer.

“Do you want to get out of here?” he says, his voice reverent. Their hands twist so their fingers are interlocked. Buffy takes a shallow, rattling breath, and he can hear her heart racing.

“You have no idea,” she breathes.


End file.
